Online Poker Blog

Etiquette in a public cardroom is fairly simple.

• A simple faux pas is to not act in accordance with the cardroom’s rules. For example, to raise, one typically places all the chips, those to call (if any) and the raise in one motion; you cannot do two hand gestures (this is called a string raise), unless you state your intentions prior to placing chips.
• Cards are to be face-down to other players until showdown. If you fold, you hand in your cards face-down. If you are in the hand until showdown, you turn up your cards if either you are first to show (last person to raise shows first) or if your hand is superior to the hands previously exposed. Do not expose cards prior to showdown; depending on local rules, this may mean a comittment to check all raises or you may forfeit the hand.
• If you are requested to cease an activity by a dealer or any other representative of the cardroom, cease that activity.
• Damaging cards is both fairly difficult (because most places use cellulose-acetate cards which are hard to mark, scratch, and bend, and last approximately five years in daily play) and forbidden.
• Don’t blame the dealer for a string of bad hands. Don’t ask the dealer to “switch decks”. This may annoy the other players and it will slow down gameplay.
• Speak only English in an American cardroom. If they can’t understand you, they may assume you are in collusion with someone.
• Turn off your cell phone, or set it to vibrate mode. Do not pick it up during game play. If you pick it up, there’s the possibility you are receiving information that may provide a clue to the other players’ hands, and are therefore cheating.
• Keep your food and drinks off the table. The table is for playing cards and poker chips, not soda pop and potato chips. You have small stands around the tables to hold beverages and food. Food at the table, though, is not recommended if it leaves a residue on your hands. Sandwiches OK, BBQ ribs and fried chicken, no.
• Cheating is right out. Having said that, do not accuse other players of being cheaters. If you are wrong (most likely), you will make an unnecessary scene and end up tossed from the room. If you’re right, the cameras above you will catch the guy in the act for you.
• You cannot buy more chips while a round is in progress.
• Failing to call out, “all-in” when you are is a minor issue.
• All your chips must remain on the table during play. You may not remove chips from the table to your pockets, or vice versa.
• Remember when you must pay forced bets, such as blinds in Texas Hold ‘em and Omaha Hold ‘em.
• Keep the game play flowing. By the time the bet comes round to you, you should know what your course of action is. Calling for “time” when you have a difficult decision to make is acceptable as long as you don’t take excessively long or do this very often.
• Remember, the cards speak for themselves. When the hand is over, don’t overstate your hand in an effort to cause an opponent to throw away a better hand. Also, don’t throw away your own hand until your opponent shows a better hand; he might not have read this etiquette page, and could be lying about having a straight flush. The dealer is the adjudicator of each round.
• Knocking the table is a check, tossing your cards is a fold. Saying “Check” or knocking the table is the same thing. Placing your chips down without a spoken amount commits you to the full value of the laid chips or the table maximum, whichever applies. Calling a raise means following through.
• The most important thing: NEVER EVER PLAY WITH MONEY YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

“Bottom dealing” is a form of cheating in poker and other card games. It consists of placing high cards on the bottom of the deck while shuffling and dealing those cards to yourself or your teammates. Bottom dealing is both easier to commit and easier to detect than second dealing.

Moderate-skill methods in poker cheating

A cheat with moderate skill always has the option to hand-muck, that is, switch their hand with one they have secretly hidden on them somewhere. This may also be done with a confederate. Mechanical devices have been invented for the purpose of switching hands. Though such machines are outdated, the modern equivalents (clips that hold cards on the underside of the table) should not be overlooked. The “hands above the table” house rule is recommended to prevent this. If it is done above the table, then anyone at the table can see it. This type of cheat runs the risk that he plays the same card as someone else at the table; at which time there must be a cheat at the table. Most people, not wanting to point fingers, will just end the game for the evening.

Skilled methods

Never doubt that a skilled cheat may deal a card from any place in the deck. A skilled cheat can deal the second card, the bottom card, the second from bottom card, and the middle card. The idea is to “cull“, or to find the cards one needs, place them at the bottom, top, or any other place the cheat wants, then false deal them to himself or his confederate. Suppose the cheat is next to deal. In the previous showdown, there are four sevens in different hands. The cheat pick up the cards so that all four sevens end up on the bottom of the deck. He then false shuffles the deck and deals himself the four sevens off the bottom of the deck.

There are many tells as to this kind of cheating:

1. Beware of anyone gripping the deck with the index finger in front of it. This is referred to as the mechanics grip. It not only allows better control of the cards, but provides cover as, showing the back of the top card, and without moving the hand holding the deck.
2. Beware any shuffle instantly followed by a cut. This is a well known way to undo a shuffle. The idea is that, as the halves of the deck are taken apart, the bottom half is shuffled so its top card is on top. Cutting the cards, and in doing so, unweaving the interlaced cards, places the bottom half right where it started. Completing the cut places the deck in its original order.

Dealing mechanics

Despite all this high power sleight of hand, the cheat still won’t win money with four sevens if everyone else has a bust, so the cheat stacks two hands. Obviously the cheat will get the better one. Let’s say he has two hands one on the bottom of each half of the deck, ready to shuffle (let’s say four kings and four aces). All the cheat has to do is to shuffle the two halves PERFECTLY, that is, alternating from one half to the other. When done with the whole deck this is called a faro shuffle. This places in alternating order on the bottom of the deck the cards K,A,K,A,K,A,K,A. He can then false shuffle to his heart’s content without disturbing those eight bottom cards, and begin dealing. When he gets to his mark, he deals that player the bottom card. He deals himself bottoms too. This places the big fish with four kings, a real betting hand, and the cheat with four aces, hence the cheat cleans up. This is called the double duke.

The best way to foil mechanics of this nature is to burn them, to watch their hands at all times and to always insist on a cut. This may not prevent them from cheating, but it forces them to undo the cut – a difficult and dangerous move. Only world class cheats will undo a cut while being burned. Note: no other shuffling or cutting is allowed after EVERY player is offered the option of cutting. A cheat may bend the entire deck so as to reveal where the cut was, so that his confederate sitting to his left may undo the cut or he may do so himself should the appropriate distraction present itself.

Switching decks

This pales in comparison to the granddaddy of all cheating – the “cold deck“. After all the shuffling and cutting has been done (everyone nicely pacified) the cheat can switch the deck for one he has stacked beforehand so that everyone has a real betting hand, but, of course, the cheat has the best one. Other versions of the “cold deck switch” utilize the cutting sequence to perform the “work.” Any deck switch is difficult, and may require distraction, but once done, no other sleights are necessary to win. The only defense is to simply always watch the deck. Many players believe that it is bad luck to look at your cards before the dealer is finished as you might miss your opponents’ reactions to their cards, and might miss burning the dealer.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Poker Cheat

The easiest method for a cheat, hard or soft, requires no ability of manipulation, but rather the profound nerve to blatantly cheat. Such methods include miscalling of hands, shorting the pot, and peeking at cards. Such cheating should not be tolerated. However, it is very difficult to prove because when confronted the cheat often calls the cheating an honest mistake.

A simple and fair way to go about preventing this kind of cheating is to simply follow the rules. For example, “Cards speak” is the common expression for the rule that no matter what the player says, it is the cards that determine who wins the pot. While it’s barely legal to call a bad hand a full house in the hopes that people will give up, the players should want to see this hand: they paid to look at it. Should such honest “mistakes” occur, it is best to ask the player to leave for that evening. If it was an honest mistake, he is in no condition to play poker (put aside your greed on this one – he will come back). If he did mean to cheat, he can’t do it from outside the game and is unlikely to come back.

The minimal skill methods of cheating occur far more often than one might suspect. It is common for a player who has folded to appoint himself tender of the pot, stacking chips, counting them, and delivering them to the winning player, just so he doesn’t have to get up. Nobody seems to notice the chip palmed in the hand of this helpful player. This is called check-copping. This happens a lot. In fact, odorless adhesive can be used for this purpose. Once again, the answer is to follow the rules. Only at the showdown should a player touch the pot. In fact, it is a considerate player who obeys the rule concerning placing chips in the pot; the player does not throw the chips in the pot (splashing) but places them in an easily counted stack in the center of the table.

Cheating can happen even when the cheat does not have the deal. In draw poker, a player can discard two cards, throwing these two in the pile of discards so as to avoid counting (or if there is no pile, throw them on top of another player’s discards), while calling for three. Not only does the cheat get the one card advantage in this hand, but before the showdown, he can ditch this extra card in his lap or vest, and thereby retain this one card advantage throughout the game. In this case, it is the dealer’s job to regulate the discards, and to ensure the fairness of the process. In a way, this is the most fair. In exchange for the huge positional advantage the dealer has, he has responsibilities to occupy his time.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Poker cheat

Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the rules intended to give an unfair advantage to one or more players. Many people make the distinction in poker between hard cheating (mechanics, collusion, and the like) and soft cheating (noting the bottom card that the dealer happened to expose without calling for a misdeal). While the rules are explicit on the subject of cheating in general, many otherwise fair players are tempted to “soft cheat”. Miscalling your hand (calling four hearts a flush, for example–hence a “four-flusher”) is cheating, while offering alcoholic drinks is not, because each player can decline.

Cheating is more common in poker than most people care to believe. Although most cheating occurs in private games that do not follow strict gaming procedures, it is also very common in regulated card rooms and casinos. Cheating can be done either by means of collusion, sleight-of-hand (such as bottom dealing, stacking the deck, switching cards etc), or the use of cheating gaffs (such as marked cards, holdout devices, glims etc).

Cheating is as common in friendly games as it is in high-stakes games. A card cheat may operate alone, but most of them operate in pairs or small groups. The groups are often composed of one card mechanic who is in charge of manipulating the cards, one or several shills who pose as regular players, and a muscle who acts as a bodyguard. Street gangs also often employ a wall man who acts as a lookout, however this approach is more common with three card monte mobs, and back-alley dice gangs.

Following is a list of terms used to categorize specific card cheats:

• card mechanic — A card cheat who specializes in sleight-of-hand manipulation of cards.
• base dealer/second dealer — Also called bottom dealer/second dealer is a cheat that specializes in bottom/second dealing.
• paper player — A card cheat that exploits the use of marked cards.
• hand mucker — A card cheat that specializes in switching cards.
• machine player — A card cheat that uses mechanical holdouts.
• crossroader — Originally, any kind of traveling hustler; but now the term is mainly use to describe cheats who specialize in hitting casinos.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: Cheating at poker